The Seaford High School Shared Decision Making Committee has recommended that the district do away with traditional class rankings.
Seaford Superintendent Brian Conboy said during his administrative report at Thursday night night’s school board that the committee has suggested only identifying the valedictorian and salutatorian in each graduating class starting in 2014. The committee’s recommendation also urged notifying students who are in the top 25 of the class. Conboy said similar changes have been made in other districts.
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“One of the things they said in the memo to the board was that they felt it was encouraging some unhealthy competition among the high achievers,” said Conboy about the reason for the committee’s recommendation to stop class rankings.
Conboy said the reason why the top 25 of a class would still be determined is that many colleges look at being in the top 10 percent or 5 percent when choosing applicants. He said any changes to class ranking procedures would need to be approved by the school board.
Richard DiBlasio, vice president of the Seaford school board, suggested during Thursday's meeting that any adjustment to the class ranking system not be made until the current freshmen have graduated.
Unfortunately this mental disorder is rampant in society today. Too bad our superintendent feels the need to apply these actions to our students. Maybe it is time for a change. Mr. Conboy needs to rethink his position or think about retiring.
"The elimination of class rankings was approved unanimously by the board, who discussed the possibility at length during December's planning session. At Wednesday's meeting, Superintendent Dr. James Grossane told residents that class rankings hurt districts like theirs, where students with high averages are ranked in the bottom 50 percent of the class. Grossane said that it causes colleges to overlook those students. "If you don’t rank, they’re more inclined to look at your transcript, look at your body of work, look at your application more closely," he said. The decision was also made in order to keep up with surrounding districts. Board vice president Peter Porrazzo noted before the vote that 27 of 33 surrounding districts sampled had already eliminated class ranking. Grossane added that those districts benefited from the decision. "The experiences of many school districts and numerous high schools throughout the county and throughout the area have been that they’ve seen a rise in their acceptance rates for students to more competitive and more prestigious colleges," he said. "We need to keep pace. We want to put our kids in the best possible light with their competition." "
But from the vantage point of being the next door neighbor to both Levittown and Seaford, if both of those districts eliminate class rankings (for whatever reasons), then the students graduating from Wantagh High in the future with their rankings intact should fare better in college admission decisions compared with future un-ranked graduates from Levittown or Seaford. Sometimes competition is not only healthy, but essential.
Years ago, when you took a Regents exams, that score became your final class grade. Not so anymore, it is a fraction of your final grade, averaged in at a certain weighting with quarterly grades. Also, years ago, in order to score 100% on a Regents exam, you actually had to answer every single question flawlessly. Not so anymore. To score high on a Regents exams now, in some instances you only have to answer 2/3 of questions correctly (depends on particular exam). So, maybe people (the adults) should be concerned with the quality of education and academic rigor as opposed to grades first before the elimination of class rankings.
What verifiable benefit does this have for the college bound student and what benefit or detriment if any to the overall quality of education? Those would be MY questions as a parent if i had a kid in school today. Could be a good thing could be something else thats what you as parents need to find out . due dilligence goes a long way in making an informed decision. ironicaly its called "doing your homework" . My only concern if it could be labled as such is with the terminology "unhealthy competetion" that to me needs to be better defined/expained.. What exactly does he /they mean by that and can examples be provided..
http://www.p12.nysed.gov/assessment/concht/scoring-regents.html
Nassau gets a large percentage of this school graduates anyway and this will hurt the good students on their college applications. I really think I moved into the wrong school district.
From the District website: "In the Wantagh Public Schools...un-weighted and weighted averages are determined at the beginning of senior year. Considered in all calculations are all high school final grades including high school level courses taken in the Middle School. The un-weighted average is determined by averaging all true final course grades with the amount of credit granted as a factor. The weighted average is determined by averaging each un-weighted grade multiplied by a weight based on the pre-determined level of difficulty. Thus: Advanced Placement & College Level Courses are weighted: 1.15 Honors Courses are weighted: 1.10 Regents Courses are weighted: 1.05 Courses without Regents designation are weighted: 1.00 In this way, the more challenging program is recognized by the student’s weighted average. Beginning with the Class of 2012, Wantagh High School does not issue a class rank to its seniors." This says to me the standards are way too low, rendering the normal distribution and standard deviation almost meaningless in terms of being able derive any true sense of performance from weighted grades.
Further, grade inflation and "parental influence" when it comes to placement in honors-level and AP classes, as well as Honor Society membership, is rampant throughout much of the schools in the immediate area. Here's a question for you all- What % of students should be placed in honors-level classes? 10%? 15% I'm under the impression is that it's closer to 40% in Wantagh HS.
As far as college acceptances go, they don't care about exact rank. They want which percentile you are in in the class, which a guidance counselor can send to the school on their own. This is not a "trophy for everybody" program. Everyone knows who is a high achiever in the school and who isn't. When college acceptances come out, it's very easy to see who the "Top 25" are. That's the trophy, and that's the true bar of success because it represents a student holistically and not just by a number. There is nothing worse for a student than being labelled as a number. "He's number [x]!" and "She's number [y]!" only depersonalizes the school atmosphere into an environment that judges one not based on their character and effort, but on their number. I have lived it and I am glad to see it go. And I'm sure my former class mates are, as well. Just as an FYI, the Top 25 signed a petition to have it removed--this wasn't something the administration originally intended to do